Mystery Flora: Contemplative Bloom

Seattle-area plants have decided fuck it, it’s spring, and they are springing. Boo and I went for a walk in the back yard during a rare break in the rain. I got dozens of lovely floral photos out of that brief wander. I never know what’s going to be in our yard – S drags new plants home constantly. He’s worse than me with rocks. But, like my rocks, the plants are generally pretty, so none of us shall complain. I do occasionally give him a mild teasing.

This particular lovely now dwells alongside our creek. It’s fairly short, and it’s contemplating the ground, and it’s a fairly subdued color from above, so you barely notice it’s there at first.

Image shows a mauve flower that looks something like a half-blown rose, its stem bent so that its head faces the ground.
Mystery Flora I

Well, I figured that wouldn’t do for a good Mystery Flora post, so I got down on the bank below it, squatted down, and shot up.

Image is looking up into the flower. With the sun coming through its petals, it's now a bit more red. It has five petals, two of which at the top and bottom have a delicate bit of green on their tips. The center of the flower looks a bit like the center of a daisy.
Mystery Flora II

Intriguing!

Well, of course, I couldn’t see what I was doing with all the backlighting and glare from that evil yellow hurty thing washing out my camera screen, so I kept snapping away from various angles. This slight profile shows a single thorn on the stem.

The perspective has shifted slightly so that the flower is at an angle. There is a single thorn on the reddish-purple stem.
Mystery Flora III

Bit like a shark’s tooth, innit? And to me, the thing’s beginning to look a bit like a rose, even if there aren’t many petals to it.

The flower is now in profile, with a tree rising up behind it. The leaves are clearly visible. They look like rosebush leaves.
Mystery Flora IV

Even the leaves look like the ones I’m so familiar with from spending lots of time smelling sweet roses. And I know from our native roses that a spectacular number of petals is not actually a requirement for a flower to be a rose. Then again, I know many flowers look like roses and aren’t. And I have no idea where this thing came from. S often rescues some very odd things from the gardens he’s hired to replace, and brings them home to live with us for a time. For instance, we have some rather weird black Japanese grass lurking about in various corners of the yard right now. You can see it in the background here as Boo samples an herb.

Image shows Boo, a black and white kitty, chewing on a spindly brown grass-like herb. In the background is a bunch of wide-bladed black grass.
S planteth, and the Boo eateth away.

I’m sure your identifications will be better than my guesses. While you identify that, I’m going to get back to trying to wrestle an intelligible tale from those Mount St. Helens blast deposits.

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Mystery Flora: Contemplative Bloom
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